We are beyond the threshold of the Autumn equinox now. The darkness deepens with each night. We’ve been cooped up indoors sniffling, my boy and I, hiding from the rain, which feels constant although its not. Storm Agnes shook the last of the leaves from our apple tree and Septembers Full Moon, the Harvest Moon kept us awake more than one night.
It peaked on Friday morning, and so when it rose on Friday night it was already on the wane, although still huge and golden and bright. Its light blocking out the stars in the wee hours and painting the mist gold as it rolled in from the river and bog around the house.
I’ve been reading poetry and wandering in the night, illness and vivid dreams keeping me from sleep, and that moon so bright through the rooms. We’ve been eating my blackberry jam on freshly baked bread, made locally with all Irish flour and it feels like an offering and a feast at once. We’ve been tending the fire and eating apples from the hedgerows. We’re in the season of plenty and this moon just past begins a period of feasting and giving thanks.
This moon, the closest to the equinox, the Harvest Moon, Barley Moon, Song Moon, is so called as our ancestors may have used the extra light to gather the last of the harvest. But perhaps more so as the marker that it was time it was all safely secured away. The Spring sown barley has long since been ready in the fields, those left standing have been beaten by the storms and stolen by the crows. The field harvest should be over now, the root vegetable and fruit harvest continues. And it is time to celebrate, to sing our thanks to the land. For its abundance, for its plenty.
Barley lore is inseparable from the folklore of the harvest, the last sheaf and harvest knots I wrote of back at the start of harvest season, you can see those posts by following the links here or in my archive.
Today I want to concentrate on the folklore and mythology surrounding the abundance of harvest. In both Celtic and Greek mythology there was the concept of an afterlife in a place of perpetual harvest for those who died an honourable death. The Isle of Plenty, the Elysian Fields, Mag Mell in the west, even Avalon all feature beautiful plains in perpetual ripe and ready harvest. Sometimes they are portrayed as a beautiful meadow but more often it is golden fields of wheat or barley, or lands where apple orchards are always in fruit. The bounty of harvest was deemed so important by our ancestors that they envisaged it as an otherworldly paradise available only to a select few. And so, this moon and particularly Samhain beyond was a yearly taste of that otherworld whilst they still drew earthy breath.
Song is not within my gift, so today I offer a poem, an Invocation of the harvest season here in Ireland. It takes direct inspiration from the ancient poem Incantation of the Land of Ireland, which in mythology was the spell uttered by the powerful Druid Amergin allowing the Milesians to invade this magical island. The poem invokes the bounty of Ireland, praising this fertile land and gives us (in the translation) my favourite line in all literature; Lofty Ireland, darkly sung. In the original Gaelic it is composed in ‘Conaclon’ meaning the end of each line rhymes with the start of the next and the repetition of words alongside alliteration is used to create an incantatory effect. The English translation, and my own poem today use a similar structure, without the rhyme but using alliteration and the repetition of a word from the line before drawing the rhythm into the next. It is a beautiful, if deceptively simple writing exercise for this Harvest season.
Below is the poem, a celebration of the season we are in, and below that are three pieces of flash fiction drawing inspiration from each of the names for this moon. Harvest alludes to the mythical isles in the west, a hero on his way. Barley takes inspiration from the song Fields of Gold, and I will link to a playlist created in the spirit of this Singing Moon below. The last piece Song is a little ditty on a character long-time subscribers will be familiar with.
As always if you enjoy any of the pieces, please let me know. Thank you, for being with me in this space.
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